Friday, 15 June 2012

Carnival of Evolution #48 - An Open Letter to P.Z. Myers

Hi there P.Z.

I am writing to you because I see you as someone who is enthusiastic
about debunking religion, is interested in evolution, feels strongly about
academic freedom, and treats the establishment view of political correctness
with the contempt it deserves.

First of all the model starts by assuming that there are no significant
differences in the basic brain mechanisms of humans and animals that cannot be
explained in terms of greater capacity plus the effect of culture (driven by
language). Such a model clearly undermines the arguments of the religious who
want to claim there is a god-given difference.

Secondly the model predicts a point where language driven learning from
ones parent's (or other experienced elders) becomes more efficient in
evolutionary terms than trial and error learning or simply copying observed
actions. The effect probably only means a small change because animals are
already able learn quickly about avoiding dangerous situations, and by extending
the scope of this “rapid learning” facility the effect would be to turn the
brain into an uncritical sponge which automatically absorbs taught ideas – so if
you get a child at the right age it is easy to pump them full of religious
nonsense.

You might think that a “simple” model of how an animal brain might work
would be incapable of supporting an “intellectual power house” but work on an
unconventional blue-sky project called CODIL suggests otherwise. It was an attempt
to design a “white box” information processor (in contrast to the stored
programme computer “black box” approach) which would allow people and processors
to work symbiotically together to process open-ended and poorly defined
information processing tasks. The CODIL approach used a very similar approach to
that proposed in the brain mmodel and its power results by combining a
very simple processing architecture with a
recursive memory structure , which allows
“memory nodes” to be linked together in an almost infinitely complex associative
network.

There is one other aspect of the model which needed further thought.
While CODIL is very different to the stored program computer (see, for example,
The Limitations of the Stored Program Computer) it does have a “programming feature” where part of the information
structure can be interpreted as a series of sequential rules. Applied to the
evolution of culture this means that it only needed one person to come up with a
way of lighting a fire by rubbing two sticks together, or a way of doing
arithmetic, and the technique can then be passed on from generation to
generation. This approach may well underlie the development of syntax structures
in language.

------------

Of course you may consider that the above brainstorming ideas need to be
suppressed (by for example not mentioning it in the Carnival of Evolution)
because because, as an atheist and scientist you know that the internal decision
making mechanisms of the human brain are significantly more advanced than mere
animal brains because (a) God made it
that way(oops sorry - obviously not), (b) it
is a self-evident fact that needs no proof, (c) that is what you were taught at
school, (d) there is a proof somewhere in the scientific literature or the bible (oops - sorry again) but you can't give me the
reference immediately.

But don't worry – there is another very good reason for you to dismiss my
brainstorm. My research assumes that computers took off so quickly that no-one
ever stopped to do any blue sky research into the design of inherently
human-friendly information processors – and such imaginative research
rapidly because impossible once a vast establishment of programmers, systems
analysts, professors of Computer Scientists, etc., had a deeply entrenched position to
maintain, and a policy of ever faster, ever onward, in the direction we are
already committed to. You may reject this approach on the grounds that if a technology is
successful and makes a lot of money for a lot of people the underlying science
MUST have been thoroughly investigated by someone, somewhere, and
proven to be the best for ordinary humans - and not just mathematicians. You may
concede that the pioneers at Xerox Parc (whose research led to the graphical
interface of Apple, Windows, and later devices) only looked at how to hide the
fundamentally unfriendly black box at the heart of every stored program
computer. You may be convinced that the stored program computer approach is the
only possible approach (although it is clearly not what the brain does) because
you wereindoctrinated (oops sorry) taught at school
that in order to understand information it was essential to understand
programming - and so you have been taught to think a bit like a computer.

Alternatively you may have wielded the axe because you consider what I am
trying to do is just bad science. After all modern science involves dividing
everything in narrower and still narrower specialities. It is quite obvious that
all the simple ideas have been snapped up – so I must be wasting your time, and
everyone else's, by suggesting that there is a need to stand as far back as
possible and try and get a proper unbiased overview of the wood in which we all
live. My “simple ideas” about how the human brain works are easily shot out of
the sky. Millions of people are engaged on relevant in depth research if you include all
brain studies, how children learn, linguistics and the development of languages,
etc. etc., and you note that I am clearly are not up to speed on all the
literature. It is therefore easy for you to prove my approach is wrong – by using a
technique used by Creationists trying to disprove evolution. You select a few
tiny leaves and mutter the words “missing link” or “unexplained complexity” and
then claim my whole approach must be rubbish because there is no immediate
answer to the “objection”.

Finally exceptional claims need exceptional proof and the failure of the
CODIL project proves I was unable to get exceptional proof. Let us just assume
that exceptional proof of an idea which questions the establishment position
would cost 0.001% of the value of the establishment position. CODIL
questions the foundations of the stored program computer for tasks involving
human beings and messy open-ended real world problems. You can then point out
that I would have had no difficulty in raising 0.001% of the money spent on
computers and their applications since 1945. Even if I had failed to raise
enough money I am sure from your posts about academic freedom on your blog that
you believe that no university would ever bully someone with original ideas to
pack it in, even if they had not raised sufficient funds, just because the ideas
were politically incorrect.

If, for
some reason, you didn't see my submission, (perhaps it got caught up in a spam
filter somewhere) you might care to consider whether it is worth mentioning in a
new post on your science
blog (as
simply adding a footnote to the Carnival is unlikely to be
seen).

On the
other hand you may think I am some kind of “religious maniac” for introducing
some unconventional ideas in order to prove that the human brain is no more than
an animal brain with a lot of extra memory, with the ability to absorb vast
amount of “culture,” and with no unexplained bits left for the supernatural to
hide. If that is how you feel, why not hang me out to dry on your
freethought blog – with
excerpts from the original post or this email and with lots of little figures to
show why you think I am being a silly old fool who is “Trapped by
the Box”.

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About Me

A.K.A. Hertfordshire Chris -
I am, by temperament, a scientist who likes to stand back and get an overview - rather than getting stuck in a narrow specialist area. I am particularly interested in how people process information and how we could design systems that fit into the way that people think.
Since I retired I have been very much involved in mental health service provision (but have recently retired from all committee work) and I run a web site at www.hertfordshire-genealogy.co.uk which provides help and advice for people whose ancestors lived in Hertfordshire.